madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[Alexkral]

It doesn't work for me, continuous frame drops, and it doesn't improve too much anyway. Gradual Denoise works quite well but I have to reduce other settings a bit.

[huhn]

it should work with DXVA scaling.

[ryrynz]

I'm fed up with the grain/noise added to some UHD videos.

Added? That would probably be "preserved".

[SamuriHL]

Preserved in most cases, yes. In some movies they've done really stupid things and attempted to add film grain to make it feel more like film. I can't think of it off the top of my head but I encountered one of them recently and it was very distracting.

This is not an HTPC but a power plant! :DLol! I wasn't messing around. I wanted something that would handle the settings I choose to use. Madvr can be power hungry at times.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[huhn]

madVR can be CPU hungry?

don't waste your money on a CPU just get a bigger GPU.

[SamuriHL]

The CPU wasn't for madvr. My 3770k machine developed a bad Mobo and the whole machine had to be upgraded. And I don't like upgrading often so I tend to go all out when I do. I completely agree that the 9900k is overkill for madvr.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

[Charky]

Added? That would probably be "preserved".
I think that depends.

The grain is indeed "preserved" if we're talking about a movie shot on actual film stock that's being digitally scanned afterwards.

With more recent movies, mostly shot with digital cameras, grain is often added in post-production to achieve a film look. I don't really mind (I like "organic" dirty looking pictures) unless the filmmakers turns the knob to 11.

[nsnhd]

madVR can be CPU hungry?

don't waste your money on a CPU just get a bigger GPU.
I'm using a Core i5-Haswell with a GTX 1060 6gb and because the GPU is doing every video processing now, can I downgrade the CPU to a Pentium eg.G3450 without lowering madVR power ?

[huhn]

i personally would get a CPU with AVX2 support but madVR doesn't care.

no one measured blackbar detection yet but it is nearly for sure single threaded.

[tp4tissue]

I'm using a Core i5-Haswell with a GTX 1060 6gb and because the GPU is doing every video processing now, can I downgrade the CPU to a Pentium eg.G3450 without lowering madVR power ?

Yes you can. One of my TV box is a g3258 @ 4.6ghz, dual core, non-hyperthread + DDR3 2400mhz, nvi 1060 6g

During full UHD iso playback, Cpu utilization (total) hovers around 70% in this config

I wouldn't recommend this unless it's a dedicated machine though, because if some other app kicks on in the background, this thing Will-Stutter.

[nsnhd]

AVX2 supported only by Core-I, so downgrade from i5 to a i3 doesn't make sense since the i5 can decode AV1 4k@30fps

[tp4tissue]

It'd have to be a high side 6 series i5 @ 4.3ghz and above for Full-fat 4k.

For sandy bridge gen i-series, w/ AVX, it has to be ~4.7ghz

Avx 2 is unnecessary.

But you wouldn't upgrade CPU Just For madvr, that's a waste, because a faster GPU can do more for the Same increase in money spent..

[huhn]

AVX2 is very important for decoding and gives serious IPC gains and is used a lot in the past years: http://www.redaktion.tu-berlin.de/fileadmin/fg196/publication/chi2015b.pdf

[el Filou]

Preserved in most cases, yes.I watch UHD movies downscaled to 1080p tone mapped to 200 nits with madVR, but even with downscaling I've noticed that film grain/digital noise is much less aesthetically pleasing than in any 1080 Blu-ray I've seen. Don't know if it's because of HDR or the better source definition or something else but it looks more like artifacts than grain or camera read noise (which usually doesn't bother me).AVX2 is very important for decoding and gives serious IPC gains and is used a lot in the past years: [link]But if you're using GPU decode for the codecs that are supported now, then this would only be useful for AV1 while there is no fixed function hardware support. If it will be really useful or not all depends on how often you upgrade your GPU.

[cork_OS]

I watch UHD movies downscaled to 1080p tone mapped to 200 nits with madVR, but even with downscaling I've noticed that film grain/digital noise is much less aesthetically pleasing than in any 1080 Blu-ray I've seen.
I agree UHD's film grain is eyes-scratching. When madshi returns, we should ask him about it.

[Manni]

The CPU wasn't for madvr. My 3770k machine developed a bad Mobo and the whole machine had to be upgraded. And I don't like upgrading often so I tend to go all out when I do. I completely agree that the 9900k is overkill for madvr.


I also have a 3770K and the motherboard (Asus P8P-67 Pro) is on its last leg. The only thing preventing me from upgrading it as long as it doesn't die is that I'm waiting for PCI-E 4.0 or 5.0, to future-proof my upgrade a bit more.

I'm like you, I don't upgrade my mobo/chassis very often. I built this system in 2011 and I have upgraded many components since (RAM, SSD, CPU, GPU). The mobo has been rock solid apart from a few SATA and USB ports disintegrating over time.

Hopefully it will hold until I can get a MOBO with a PCI-E standard for the next 10 years, possibly with a GPU with HDMI 2.1... :)

It's still not a bottleneck for madVR and my 1080ti, so fingers crossed it will last a bit longer...

[SamuriHL]

I'd been putting this upgrade off a while. The machine has had stability issues for a couple years now and the usual troubleshooting did not determine the issue. I even put it in a new case/power supply and the issues continued. Turns out it was an intermittently bad DIMM slot causing random (and I mean RANDOM) reboots under medium and heavy loads. Super hard to diagnose. At that point it became imperative to replace the mobo, cpu, and ram. The upgrade was planned a year ago but I got distracted with my UHD upgrade first, and then getting laid off 7 months ago. But now that I have a new job I wanted to get this thing fixed and upgraded first thing. I think I built a little monster that should last a while.

I watch UHD movies downscaled to 1080p tone mapped to 200 nits with madVR, but even with downscaling I've noticed that film grain/digital noise is much less aesthetically pleasing than in any 1080 Blu-ray I've seen. Don't know if it's because of HDR or the better source definition or something else but it looks more like artifacts than grain or camera read noise (which usually doesn't bother me).But if you're using GPU decode for the codecs that are supported now, then this would only be useful for AV1 while there is no fixed function hardware support. If it will be really useful or not all depends on how often you upgrade your GPU.

Some movies are worse than others. And from what I can tell it really does match the original source material. Karate Kid 1984, for example, has a ton of grain in it but the original source material does. I think on a lot of 1080p blu-rays they filter some of that out when they master it whereas the UHD is trying to retain source material as much as possible. I'm good with original film grain. I'm not as much of a fan as digitally added film grain to try to make it look like film. I think that's where they overdo it quite a bit. IMO anyway.

[toki]

I've read that the next generation of Ryzen chips should have mobos with the next PCIe gen on them.

[Manni]

Yes it's coming. I'll wait for Intel though.

[el Filou]

from what I can tell it really does match the original source material. [...] I think on a lot of 1080p blu-rays they filter some of that out when they master it whereas the UHD is trying to retain source material as much as possible.Yes, possibly when those old movies were released we didn't witness that grain in the cinemas as the 35mm projection prints always lose quality compared to the negatives, so it just may be the first time we actually encounter it and it looks weird to us.

[chros]

Yes it's coming. I'll wait for Intel though.
Forget about Intel :) go for AMD this time (and as mclingo use to say, I'm not a fanboy:) ), they have the better bang for money today, and they will have the better product tomorrow.
The market started to shift (https://youtu.be/VhNvY7oEVyU) a year ago, hopefully Intel's mindshare will be finally completely shattered in the next couple of months, and noone - I mean literally noone - will buy Intel for couple of years as a punishment for what they did to the PC market (https://youtu.be/osSMJRyxG0k) in the last decade due to lack of competition.
I looked around half a year ago when I put together my current rig and I was shocked that they still wanted to sell 4C4T cpus for loads of money. And I have mates who still bought that overpriced crap because they thought: if cpu then Intel.
What Intel did was stealing and they only could do that because customers allowed them to do it and they will continue this habit unless...
The following companies already voted for AMD: Sony with PS5, Google, datacenters, etc. This will be a completely different game this time.
Don't get me wrong: every corporation is the same in the long run, but today...

On the VGA front the situation is a bit different: AMD doesn't care about PC (https://youtu.be/PRz4U9GrM2w) gaming for now and there are rumours that the upcoming Navi (https://youtu.be/Xg-o1wtE-ww) won't be the savour either.
Maybe Intel will step up in this market - and no, not for us users :) - and bring down the insane prices of nVidia.
We will be smarter after Computex.

(And no, I don't want to upgrade my PC - that is not just an HTPC - in the next 5-8 years :), maybe buying 2-4 years old power efficient nVidia GPUs strictly from the used market)

[SamuriHL]

Yes, possibly when those old movies were released we didn't witness that grain in the cinemas as the 35mm projection prints always lose quality compared to the negatives, so it just may be the first time we actually encounter it and it looks weird to us.

But it's correct. :)

[alps006]

May be a stupid question.My projector is BenQ TK-800 (XPR 4K).I have been using madVR for years and always very happy with the results, and no exception with my current setup. I was just playing around with madvR settings last night, and accidentally found out that if I select BT.709/601 curve instead of pure power curve, the brightness increases, and it gives me a nice bright picture compared to what I have with pure power curve. I have selected BT 709 as my primaries/gamut and as it gives me the best picture with excellent colors. If I select BT2020, the colors become dull and undersatuarated but DCP-P3 gives me a slightly better picture.What I am asking is, under these settings, is it correct to select "BT.709/601 curve" or am I doing something wrong by selecting it? Thank you.

[Asmodian]

The BT.709/601 curve has a flat spot in the gamma curve near black which causes it to rise much faster than pure power. If your display benefits from it it is correct, however it was not designed for displays but as a way to deal with too much noise near black with early digital cameras. It is not technically correct for your projector but if you get some shadow crush it can improve the picture a lot. A custom calibration for you projector would be better, but that does require extra hardware.

This is separate from the gamut, which you should always set to whatever primaries your display uses. Your projector uses BT 709 primaries, selecting DCI-P3 or BT.2020 in madVR will give you an incorrect (and washed out) image.

[alps006]

Thank you very much, Asmodian. Thoroughly understood.

[tp4tissue]

AVX2 is very important for decoding and gives serious IPC gains and is used a lot in the past years: http://www.redaktion.tu-berlin.de/fileadmin/fg196/publication/chi2015b.pdf

I agree it's -a good thing-. However, it's NOT-important in the least for videoplayback/ madvr.

If a 4.7ghz i5 Sandybridge can CPU decode Full bitrate 4K bluray, There's flat out no reason to chase a CPU upgrade, if that budget can be put towards GPU instead.

[huhn]

never said someone should upgrade just if you get a new CPU get AVX2 is used everywhere.

[SirMaster]

Anyone have any suggestions for this issue?

I am not sure where to ask it, but I think it's probably a Windows or maybe NVidia thing?

I set up a HTPC for a friend, but for some reason, whenever a video opens or closes (Like starting a video in MPC-HC or then closing MP-HC itself) it causes his display to have to re-acquire it's signal.

This is pretty annoying as he has an older JVC (RS600) with a near 20-second sync time.

Now, I am completely familiar with refresh rate switching and such, but I have all of that completely disabled. I have the HTPC set for 3840x2160 23Hz RGB 12-bit (tried 8-bit as well). Refresh rate switching is disabled in madVR and disabled in MPC-HC.

Any ideas of how I can have it so that the JVC doesn't need to re-sync every time I open and close a video?

[huhn]

should be fullscreen exclusive.

[tp4tissue]

Guys, How is 980Ti's NGU performance, assuming CPU decode.

It's got all dem' Cudas

[SirMaster]

should be fullscreen exclusive.

You are saying this in response to my question on the display signal re-syncing?

I have full-screen exclusive off, but I also tried it on and the behavior didn't change with respect to the display needing to re-sync the signal when the video opens and closes.

[Manni]

Anyone have any suggestions for this issue?

I set up a HTPC for a friend, but for some reason, whenever a video opens or closes (Like starting a video in MPC-HC or then closing MP-HC itself) it causes his display to have to re-acquire it's signal.


It could be because the player/renderer is set to use Full Screen Exclusive. Set it to use Full Screen Windowed and you shouldn't get the resync.

Alternatively, the desktop is set to 60hz or 50hz and the player/madVR switches to a different refresh rate when the video is played (usually 23hz).

For this reason, I have my desktop set to 23hz, that way only get a resync when playing non-23p content. However, with HDR there is a resync anyway, even if the refresh rate is the same.

If you don't want a resync ever, then you have to switch the OS to HDR and use an option to convert everything to the same refresh rate, but that's really not recommended.

[SirMaster]

It could be because the player/renderer is set to use Full Screen Exclusive. Set it to use Full Screen Windowed and you shouldn't get the resync.

Alternatively, the desktop is set to 60hz or 50hz and the player/madVR switches to a different refresh rate when the video is played (usually 23hz).

For this reason, I have my desktop set to 23hz, that way only get a resync when playing non-23p content. However, with HDR there is a resync anyway, even if the refresh rate is the same.

If you don't want a resync ever, then you have to switch the OS to HDR and use an option to convert everything to the same refresh rate, but that's really not recommended.

I tried both exclusive full screen and full screen windowed mode. I tried every option in the rendering tab in madVR.

But even when the player opens the video in a small window in MPC-HC in the middle of the display it still happens.

I mentioned I have Windows already locked at 3840x2160 23Hz RGB 12-bit (and I tried 8-bit as well).

I have all refresh rate switching features in the video player and madVR disabled. The JVC info screen reports the exact same video signal info before and after it goes to a black syncing screen.

It's just completely stumping me as to why it's happening. And remember then it also happens when the video player is closed, but again there is no refresh rate change actually taking place.

There is also no syncing issue happening when i switch between window and full screen in the player, just when the video is started and when it's closed.


Why would HDR need to be on? I am tone-mapping HDR to SDR in madVR. The projector is seeming not actually switching anything between the desktop and video playback, but yet it always has to re-sync.

[Manni]

Why would HDR need to be on? I am tone-mapping HDR to SDR in madVR. The projector is seeming not actually switching anything between the desktop and video playback, but yet it always has to re-sync.

I mentioned HDR in case you wanted to use HDR passthrough in madVR. Obviously not necessary if you're using pixel shader.

No idea what's causing your issue. It certainly wasn't the case with my rs500 and isn't the case with my rs2000.

[huhn]

if you are using an nvidia card try NCP -> display -> adjust display colour settings -> content type reported to display and set it to something that is not auto.

[SirMaster]

if you are using an nvidia card try NCP -> display -> adjust display colour settings -> content type reported to display and set it to something that is not auto.

Yeah, I should have posted this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0T0Oln6khk

This is exactly my issue, but unfortunately, the "fix" had no affect. I tried both desktop and video mode from the drop down.

[huhn]

are you sure you have selected the correct screen. only two options sounds odd for a projector.

[SirMaster]

are you sure you have selected the correct screen. only two options sounds odd for a projector.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What 2 options do you mean and how many should there me.

This setup has only a single display even connected to the PC.

It's RTX 2070 -> Marantz 8802 -> JVC RS600.

[el Filou]

huhn means usually you have more choices in the content type drop down, like 'photos', 'movies', 'games', etc.
I only have 'video' and 'desktop' too.

[khanmein]

Yeah, I should have posted this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0T0Oln6khk

This is exactly my issue, but unfortunately, the "fix" had no affect. I tried both desktop and video mode from the drop down.

I don't have the option and no issue with displayport.

[ryrynz]

Who actually has the latest Nvidia drivers actually change timings for them? I can't get anything over 1 frame repeat I think it was every 13 odd mins. It's like the drivers themselves are just preventing changes.
Nothing I select makes a difference. With 385.28, no problems at all..Seems that quite a few people are in the same boat. Narrowing down what's allowing people to get results vs not might be useful in improving this?

[tp4tissue]

I have a slight fear in the back of my mind that with streaming, the flock has moved away from media collection, and concurrently away from Good'ol PC playback.

With less users overall, the worst iteration of this play out is non-support down the road for our beloved hobby.

[chros]

Nothing I select makes a difference. With 385.28, no problems at all..Seems that quite a few people are in the same boat. Narrowing down what's allowing people to get results vs not might be useful in improving this?
I'm pretty sure it doesn't work for anybody, they just haven't noticed it.

[ryrynz]

I guess the best solution will be to use Smooth Motion @ 120Hz to avoid this situation altogether. Is Smooth Motion @ 120Hz better than 24Hz with no frame drops/repeats? Anyone done any comparisons? Huhn?
I could hold with a 1080 and 385.28 until I upgrade to a HDMI 2.1 setup.. real shame it hasn't eventuated this year, although with the LG 9 series OLED you could manage 1440 at 120Hz.

[chros]

I guess the best solution will be to use Smooth Motion @ 120Hz to avoid this situation altogether. Is Smooth Motion @ 120Hz better than 24Hz with no frame drops/repeats? Anyone done any comparisons? Huhn?
I could hold with a 1080 and 385.28 until ...
For me the best is to use 23p for 23fps content. And you can do it with 385.28 as you've said. But everybody favours something different ... :)

[el Filou]

with streaming, the flock has moved away from media collection, and concurrently away from Good'ol PC playback.
With less users overall, the worst iteration of this play out is non-support down the road for our beloved hobby.You still need good timings in order to avoid frame drops/repeats even with streaming. People move away from PC to Android boxes or players integrated to their TV even for local media playback.
Surprinsingly, PC playback may actually be saved by streaming, with a lot of people watching from their laptops.

[cremor]

Who actually has the latest Nvidia drivers actually change timings for them? I can't get anything over 1 frame repeat I think it was every 13 odd mins. It's like the drivers themselves are just preventing changes.
Nothing I select makes a difference. With 385.28, no problems at all..Seems that quite a few people are in the same boat. Narrowing down what's allowing people to get results vs not might be useful in improving this?

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work for anybody, they just haven't noticed it.

I'm not on the latest version, but with 430.53 (hotfix) I can use the custom modes from madVR without problems. Although I have to say that I only ever tried to optimize the pixel clock because that already bringt me multiple hours between expected frame drops/repeats.

RTX 2070 with a gaming monitor. Custom modes for 100 and 119 Hz.

[Klaus1189]

cremor
Do you use a 23 Hz mode of any kind (standard or optimized)? Other refresh rates than 23 Hz don't have problems in short intervalls of frame drops or repeats, as far as I know.

[alps006]

My projector is BenQ TK-800. When I tried to lower target peak nits below 100 nits, madVR defaults back to 200 nits but anything above 100 nits is settable. Anyone had this type of issue or just me? BTW, I get perfect picture quality at 100 nits, just wanted to do more experimenting.Thanks!

[Asmodian]

Below 100 nits is not very reasonable, 100 nits is SDR's peak so trying to map to a peak below that gets odd. This behavior is by design, notice that when you type in a number below 100 it is red, while at 100+ it is green.